The Saving of Valdemar
by Lillielle
Summary: Will Vanyel have to pay Magic's Price again?


**The Saving of Valdemar**

"Worthless cur," her father snapped, his face darkened with congested blood, his eyes crackling with suppressed fury. "Get out of here. I never want to see your ugly face again." He turned away in disgust, clapping a hand to his bruised and torn cheek. His hand was dark black-purple from bruises.

Alyssia's eyes—her strange, changeling eyes that had always set her apart—burned with tears. She slowly wiped her face clean of soot and water, and grabbed her meager possessions. They weren't much. A rag doll her mother had made her, a wooden spoon, her prized knife. Her father had turned around and with chilly eyes, watched her, uncompromising even as a sluggish rill of blood trickled down his face. From a wound _she_ had caused, albeit unwittingly, she thought with a nasty pang in her chest. Anything that had happened to him was _her_ fault.

_Stupid magic,_ she thought. Because of her _magic_, her own father didn't love her.

"Get OUT!" her father roared suddenly, coming at her, one thick, hammy fist reaching out to club her against the doorframe. His face was putrescent and distorted through the veil of her tears. Alyssia ran into the forest, her bare feet slapping the ground, raising tiny plumes of dust.

_Worthless_ echoed in her head, pounding in time with her ragged heartbeat.

It happened quickly. A tree root caught at her foot, sending her flying. She hit the ground hard, driving the breath from her lungs. Pain exploded through her head in a volatile burst, and she tumbled into darkness.

Stefan looked at Vanyel's downcast head and cursed silently. Despite the healing time with the _kyree_—those fantastical creatures with the bodies of wolves but the minds of men—Vanyel still wasn't fully recovered from his horrible experience with the bandits. _Master Dark's_ bandits. Stefan shuddered at the thought of what Vanyel had gone through at the hands of those evil, soul-empty men.

As if sensing his lover's dark thoughts, Vanyel turned in Yfandes's saddle, his eyes searching Stefan's face. They were warm, yet a sliver of icy despair and utter torment still darkened the silver irises, widening the pupils.

"Don't fret, _ashke_," Vanyel said, using the Tayledras word for "beloved." It purposely reminded Stefan of his own private nickname for Vanyel, playing off Vanyel's last name—"Ashkevron."

"I promise, Stefan, I'm fine. _Shay'kreth'ashke_." Prompting Stefan to remember that they were lifebonded—and what a bond that was.

Stefan smiled wanly.

"I know you are, _ashke_," he replied. "Or, at least, you will be. I'm just worried about what lies ahead of us. At the end of this journey."

"_Take my darkness to you,_" whispered through Vanyel's mind, hollow and evil, but he forced himself to answer lightly, allaying Stefan's fears.

The pair rode on into the snow-slashed darkness.

Where "Master Dark" waited for them.

Alyssia was woken by the pulsing ache in her head. Jagged shards of pain radiated down her skull into her neck, making her eyes start leaking tears again. Snow had started coming down again, fat, fluffy flakes spiraling down against a leaden gray sky.

She scrambled up, wincing at the pain in her ankle. She had apparently sprained it, as well. She stumbled on, her eyes half-closed; pain her only focus, her only grip on the world. She stubbed her foot on a submerged rock and her vision grayed out, fuzzing around the edges for just a minute, before the world came back.

_I can't go on,_ she thought despairingly. _It's too much. How could my own father make me leave? I can't deal with this. I'm going to die…all alone…and so cold…_A shiver racked her entire body, and she muffled an explosive coughing fit. Her prolonged unconsciousness had apparently laid her body open to a fever.

Magic sparked enticingly at the edges of her fingertips, urging her to take hold. _No!_ she thought fiercely, shaking her head, though it deeply pained her, rejecting the magic. _You're the reason I no longer have a home! You're the reason my mother died! No!_ But it wouldn't leave her alone. It still tickled at her consciousness, beckoning her, welcoming her. Alyssia had to fight hard to resist it, until she was no longer sure she wanted to.

With hazy eyes, she stared in front of her at a cleared patch of ground for nearly a quarter of a candlemark before realizing that it was a road. She stumbled onto it, nearly weeping, before the sound of hoofbeats made her ears prick up. She couldn't be found. She couldn't be seen. What if it was a pack of men from her village, hunting her down like a wild beast? She had to hide.

Alyssia shoved her slender body into a clump of half-frozen bushes, holding her breath lest the incriminating plume of cloud give her away. Black hair tangled across her face, making her whisper an oath and shove it out of her eyes. Strange, purple-silver eyes, the kind that marked her as "not one of us," as one of the village children had so cruelly yelled.

A white horse came down the path first, hooves tinkling like bells on the road. Alyssia watched in awe. She had never heard of Heralds and their mystical Companions, but she knew that this horse, and its white-clad Rider, was something special. Just behind the Rider walked another man, a boy really, with a wan, exhausted face and a shock of auburn hair. But Alyssia had eyes only for the Rider.

_He could help me,_ she thought, looking at the kind slant of his shoulders, the easy way he sat atop the horse, the way he whispered gently to it, as if it could understand him. She didn't know why, but she was drawn to that man like metal to fire.

_Just don't let him see you,_ the cautious part of her mind warned. _Follow behind him—he could be going somewhere safe—but don't let him or that other boy see you. If you do…they might hurt you. Or kill you._

She didn't think that the Rider would kill her…but she couldn't be sure. As soon as they were around the corner, she darted out on the road and started to slowly and cautiously stalk them.

"Gods," Stefan murmured in horror-bound awe. The pass through the Northern Mountains had been cut through, as cleanly as a knife, though surely done by magic. Bare rock gleamed, razor-sharp at him. _Anyone_ could come through the newly created pass—and he had an awful, sinking idea about whom.

The army was massing just a few short miles away. He could see the gleam of black, polished armor.

"Stefan," Vanyel said hoarsely behind him. "Go. Yfandes will take you back to the Guards. You can't do anything. Please…_shay'kreth'ashke_. You can't help—only I can."

Stefan's eyes filled with startled tears and he turned around, looking through a shimmering mist at his lifebonded. Vanyel looked horrible—his face was ashy pale, his eyes like liquid pools of molten silver. His cheekbones protruded sharply through his skin.

"All right," Stefan said slowly, his eyes locked to Vanyel's own. "But…Vanyel…don't you see…you can't be alone. That was always your nightmare…being alone…" He fumbled to a stop, horribly aware of his inadequacies. _You're not being a very good Bard, are you?_ he chastised himself. _Come on, talk!_ "Please, just let me stay with you. Without you…I'll die."

"No, you won't," Vanyel promised. Stooping slightly, he pressed a kiss to Stefan's lips, then grabbed him about the waist and hoisted him onto Yfandes, who stood stock still to receive him. "Now ride, Yfandes!" He slapped the Companion lightly on the leg, and she took off, galloping like the wind. He could see Stefan's hair stream back in the wind she generated.

Suddenly, his magical senses prickled. Somebody was nearby. Acting swiftly, he strode to a quivering bush and jerked out…a girl? She was very thin and small, with frightened purple-silver eyes and tangled jet-black hair, much like his own. Her clothes were ragged and dilapidated, and a nasty bump gleamed purple on her forehead, crusted over with blood.

"Who are you?" Vanyel asked, trying to make his voice gentle and undemanding. Whoever she was, this girl was in extreme danger. Didn't she realize that this was dangerous?

"A…Alyssia," she replied, shaking. Her eyes glimmered with tears. "My da sent me away. Said he couldn't cope with my…my 'witchiness' anymore! Well, I ain't a witch!" She bravely tilted her chin at him, defying his censure. He had to stifle a laugh at her foolhardy courage.

"Do you mean you have magic, Alyssia?" he asked, bending down to her level. She was probably about thirteen or fourteen, but she was very short for her age. "Can you do…things?"

"I suppose," she said with a sigh. "Me ma stopped it when she was alive—she said she could do it with her thoughts—but ever since she died of a fever last winter, I've been seeing things and—doing—things that can't be explained. And then I hurt my own da yesterday…" She swallowed convulsively. "I didn't mean to!" she cried, the tears overflowing. "He just—he made me so angry and—I didn't mean for the firewood to jump up like that and hit him! I swear I didn't!"

"It's all right, child, I know you didn't," Vanyel said softly, stroking back a lock of her hair. She looked up at him with a trace of suspicion in her gaze. He almost laughed. She had _nothing_ to worry about. He was _shay'a'chern_, preferring only boys. "Alyssia, do you realize what you've walked into? And how special you are? You are the only person with the Mage-Gift besides myself," he told her, without an ounce of levity. She gasped, her eyes rounding. "Master Dark, a very bad mage across the pass over there, killed every boy or girl with Mage-Gift in Valdemar. But _your_ mother hid you. She didn't know she was doing it, but she hid you, and in doing that, she protected you from Master Dark.

"But now you're out here, and he's just right over there. I—I don't think I can fight him alone. Will you help me, Alyssia? Will you lend your magic to me? I promise, no harm will come to you." _Though how I can make such a promise is beyond me,_ he thought, staring glumly at the black horizon. _Master Dark's army is huge. And he is so evil!_

"All right," Alyssia said slowly after a moment's deliberation, looking up at him trustingly. It nearly broke his heart. "I'll help you. I don't want this Master Dark to hurt anybody else. Would he kill everyone in Valdemar?"

"Yes," Vanyel said soberly. "He would, Alyssia. If we can't stop him…" He let the thought dangle, unfinished. Alyssia's face went pale, but she remained determined and resolute.

"How can I help?" she asked, and Vanyel nearly broke down and started crying.

"We meet again, Herald-Mage Vanyel," a high, cold, mocking voice said. Vanyel looked up, his eyes icy silver, to see the man who had haunted his dreams for years. Master Dark. "My name is Leareth."

"Darkness," Vanyel whispered. "Your name means Darkness." Master Dark, Leareth, threw back his head and laughed. He was clad in matte black armor, and dark hair swirled around his face. He was the opposite of Vanyel in every way, probably consciously, from ebony hair to sable eyes.

Hidden behind him, wrapped in a corner of his cloak, Alyssia watched the approach of the Dark mage apprehensively. All of her channels were wide open, and linked only to Vanyel. Leareth could not get her magic.

Yfandes had returned, and stood warily behind Vanyel and Alyssia. She had looked askance at Vanyel using Alyssia's magic, but could not gainsay him. It was the only way to save Valdemar.

The two mages talked back and forth, and Alyssia paid attention to none of it. All of her attention was focused on Leareth, on his hateful, fine-boned features, and dark eyes that had no trace of humanity left in them. He was named correctly—he _was_ pure Darkness.

"_Now, Alyssia!_" Vanyel suddenly whispered. Leareth had called down a storm of lightnings that surrounded them in stabbing light, but Vanyel stood firm, even as blood ran down his face. Alyssia slipped free from his cloak, her face blazing with a pure, righteous fury. Leareth looked surprised—just as Vanyel used their joint power.

Pure, raw power poured from Vanyel's hands, aimed directly at Leareth. They wrapped him in a swirling blaze of blue light. His mouth opened in a soundless scream—and the world exploded.

"_Alyssia!_" Vanyel screamed, his throat lacerated and raw. He fell to his knees in the snow, retching horribly. Backlash surged through his channels, making him weak and dizzy, but he knew that he couldn't rest until he had found Alyssia. "_Alyssia!_"

"Here," a weak voice mumbled. She raised a dead white face from a snow bank. Her entire left cheek was covered in frozen blood. "I'm here."

"Oh thank the gods," Vanyel said rapidly, just before his stomach heaved again and he fell prone in the snow. All that was left of Leareth was a charred, smoky black spot in the snow, where rock had fused into black glass. His army was scattered and dead, most of them choosing to run back the way they came. The few that did wander toward Valdemar were swiftly picked off by the Guards Stefan had managed to bring back.

"We did it," Vanyel whispered, looking exultantly at Alyssia. "We did it. We saved Valdemar."

And Vanyel never had to pay Magic's Price.


End file.
